AI and the Enclosure of the Scientific Commons

One simple way to understand how this is currently manifesting is the administration's severe, and really unprecedented, defunding of basic science at NSF (likely in unconstitutional defiance of Congress' appropriations to specific NSF directorates). Instead the way the funding has been redirected (by the White House OSTP) is based on the assumption that future knowledge will be exclusively AI (sorry SI) generated, so humans not needed.

China, on the other hand, seems to be doubling down on fundamental research, including announcing these changes:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202609/1371583.shtml

and this: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3368750/chin...

	▲	10111001 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Instead the way the funding has been redirected (by the White House OSTP) is based on the assumption that future knowledge will be exclusively AI (sorry SI) generated, so humans not needed. Can you go into more detail about that? My impression is the real reason the Trump administration has defunded basic science (and so much else) is an unholy combination of "government bad" libertarianism and the belief the funding was going to their ideological opponents. I feel that and use of AI to justify the redirection would be post-hoc.

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bennettnate5 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> The scientific literature can be viewed as an "information commons:" an intangible resource that "no one owns

Springer would like a word